The Seamus incident is a stunning display of Mitt Romney's indifference (see "Demand Seamus Photos," February 16, Talking Politics blog post). Romney is certainly not the first person to transport a dog on the roof of a car or in the bed of a pickup truck. But most people don't do it for a 12-hour trip. Furthermore, after the dog relieved himself, any person with a sense of humanity would have put the dog in the car, and the luggage on the roof.

This incident will prevent Romney from becoming president. Far too many people of all political affiliations own dogs, and consider their dog a member of the family. I expect that if Romney is the Republican nominee, the Seamus story will explode later this year, and Crategate will become the top election story.

DAVID WAINWRIGHT
EDISON, NJ

STRESS TEST

Chris Faraone's "Organizing Chaos" (News and Features, February 24) makes some good points, but his reference to Occupy Boston's general assembly becoming bogged down in procedure misses some of what's going on. We did have a two-hour discussion of GA process, but that was a one-time discussion, not "two hours per week." Perhaps he meant the Facilitation Working Group, which is scheduling longer meetings?

My sense of what's going on is that Occupy Boston has spent five months nitpicking process because we've never taken a step back to think about what kind of process we want to have. We use the language of consensus in a process that is not very consensus-like. Because lots of details adopted in the beginning were poorly thought out or not thought out at all, we do a lot of tinkering without much consistency or context. The inconsistencies and ambiguities are generally manageable with routine or boring proposals, but they tend to break down under stress.

Some of our process problems were predictable from the beginning. But now that our system's flaws are more obvious, many of us are hoping we can do less nitpicking in the future if we engage in more thoughtful restructuring now. Aligning our process with our broader principles is fully consistent with the Occupy movement's effort to reshape public debate about unequal access to resources and power.

Romney’s Shadow Years With just six weeks to go before the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney's campaign has bogged down over the seemingly insignificant minutia of how to precisely define the leave of absence he took from Bain Capital, while he ran the Winter Olympics from 1999 to 2002.

Deval's Green Blues The document in question contains the final regulations for the state's biomass subsidies, and according to environmentalists, the Patrick administration is planning to reverse its pre-election position — and fly in the face of good science — for the benefit of a handful of developers who stand to make money off of burning trees for energy.

Boston's last congressman? At the moment, neither the Senate president nor the Speaker of the House lives in the city. And in two years, the unthinkable could become reality: Boston might not have a single congressman residing in its borders.

Living la vida Republican Trying to find college Republicans in Boston is like looking for a flattering pair of jeans: they’re elusive — either too stiff or completely out of style.

Taking sides The stakes are high in the battle for Massachusetts’s first new US senatorship in a quarter-century.

Capuano for Senate After a telescoped campaign, Massachusetts Democrats go to the polls Tuesday to choose a successor to a legend, Ted Kennedy.

The X factor Martha Coakley should be plenty thankful for the holiday weekend. The polls suggest that, if nothing significant changes between now and the December 8 primary, she should handily claim the Democratic nomination for US Senate.

Thanks for nothing! We'd like to be thankful, we really would. Change came to Washington this year and the Mad Men returned.